Chapter Text
Anise took a steadying breath as she raised her bow, arrow knocked and ready.
The soft sounds of the lush forest enveloped her senses; the gentle rustling of the wind through the trees brought her peace, the subtle chatter of the birds calmed her nerves, and the quiet snapping of the twigs beneath her prey’s hooves sharped her focus as she aimed her arrow at the ram’s heart.
As she exhaled and loosened her arrow a thunderous crash echoed in the distance, disrupting her balance and sent her arrow off its mark. The ram, startled by the jarring noise, bolted from the clearing and into the brush out of sight.
“Fenedhis,” she spat under her breath, shaking off the adrenaline that had been coursing through her limbs as she relaxed out of her stance, lowering her bow. She had been tracking the large creature for a majority of the morning and her efforts now had been wasted. She would have to wait until the creature stopped running before giving chase.
The jarring crash sounded again, but this time it was followed by a static crack, as if a bolt of lightning had struck a tree, sending the birds fluttering and squawking from the treetops. Her ears perked up at the sound, realizing the noise was coming from the direction of she had set up camp. Something had set off her wards.
And then she was moving, thoughts of her lost quarry far behind, as she had more valuable items stashed away at camp, collected from her earlier excursions she did not want stolen, or destroyed. She wove through the trees like a wraith, aware of every dip in the earth and bump of tree roots growing over her path, letting the energy of the forest guide her towards her camp.
Knocking her arrow and raising her bow once more, she entered the small glen where she had set her belongings and aimed her sight on the intruder trapped in her magical bindings.
She gasped when she closed in and saw who was caught in her ward. Her steps faltered to stop a few feet away as she took in the man before her, eyes widening in shock.
Fen’Harel.
Her heart jumped into her throat and began to throb, mind racing like the birds in the sky. She had been warned the many forms of the Dread Wolf could take. The Inquisitor had sent urgent word and description of the man to all Dalish clans, warning them of his presence—that he indeed existed and was not some shadow of nighttime story told to the da’len to scare them into behaving.
A warning that he was real.
And most importantly, that he was dangerous.
But the broken man laying at her feet seemed none of those things she had once believed Fen’Harel to be. There was blood, so much blood. It was everywhere, staining and seeping into everything. He lay in a distorted heap confined by the tendrils of her magic, the wisps of her spell constricted around his limbs as he struggled to free himself. Six arrows had pierced down his side in a line, in between the plates of his golden armor, ending at the top of his thigh. A river of red poured from each wound, soaking into the fur pelt draped across half his battered torso.
Dropping her defensive stance and replacing her arrow, she slung her bow over her shoulder and rushed to his side. With a dismissive flick of her hand, she disarmed the constricting ward. Fen’Harel stopped struggling the moment her spell dissipated into thin strands of smoke and simply slumped over, defeated.
Crouching beside him, she tentatively reached out to lift his head. She hesitated within a few inches away from his chin, fingers curling back into her palm.
This was Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf, Bringer of Nightmares…
… but also a damned man who was going to die unless she did something. She bit her lip.
Superstition and Fear whispered for her to run.
Resentment and Anger commanded her stay, watch him suffer and die.
Reason told her to send word to the Inquisition and turn him over to their jurisdiction.
Mercy pleaded with her to put him out of his misery and end his life on the spot.
But Intuition asked her to save him, and it was Intuition that won her over in the end.
Untying the red scarf she wore around her neck, Anise dabbed the blood off his face and out of his eyes, her fingers brushing across his forehead in the process. Unease churned in her gut at the contact as she discovered his skin was heated and balmy. She promptly pressed the back of her hand against his fever flushed cheeks. He wasn’t just warm, he was burning up. Gently, she tucked her fingers under his chin and tilted his head upwards. He slowly blinked, revealing glassy, unfocused blue eyes that appeared as if he was looking past her. He attempted to push away from her, but the sheer amount of effort it had required was more than he could muster. It ended up sending him keeling over onto the ground.
“Stop moving, you’ll only bleed out faster,” she chastised, catching him before his head hit the hard earth.
Laying him down as delicately as she could, she turned her attention first to his arrow wounds. From what she could tell, with his armor still on, was that the arrow heads were buried deep—and that they had met their mark some time ago. They were going to need to be cut out.
“I have to remove your armor,” she murmured, hands grasping his fur pelt and maneuvering him out of it. He made a noise of protest, trying to shrug her off but she persisted, “I need to get a better look at your wounds.”
Once the blood soaked pelt was discarded, she carefully removed his armor off piece by piece, trying her best to avoid bumping the shafts of the arrows. He winced a few times when she would get too close to one, causing her to apologize profusely, until he was stripped down to his underclothes. She ripped at the cloth of his undershirt to reveal the puncture sites and nearly let her face betray her revulsion. The flesh around the impact wounds were swollen, purple, and oozing.
“Poisoned,” Anise hissed, checking the other impact sites. She expelled a small dose of healing magic to dispel some of his pain, and to probe how deep each arrow had embed itself. A small gasp escaped Anise’s lips as her magic was drawn to his right hip. She could feel the shattered bone beneath her delicate, magic enhanced touch. She focused on the emergency before her, separating herself from her own racing heart.
His leg she could tend to on the spot, she could set his bone and perform a healing ritual to begin to mend the fracture. It would be a long and arduous process to get him walking on his own again, that was a worry for another time. Unfortunately, she realized as she scanned his arrow wounds again, the extent of those infected injuries demanded full healing attention, and that something she could not provide at a simple hunting camp site; she was going to have to get him back to the Clan to treat those wounds.
That thought sent her head reeling.
She was going to have to march the Dread Wolf right into the heart of her Clan.
…but what other choice did she truly have? The more time she wasted deliberating, the more blood he lost. Time was running out.
“I can’t remove the arrows here,” she explained slowly, lifting his head again so she could hold his gaze, “You are seriously wounded and I don’t have enough of the right supplies with me to heal all of your injuries,” she paused, letting him absorb what she was saying, “But, I can set and heal your bone. Then I’ll be able to transport you to where I can properly remove the arrows and purify these wounds,” she continued softly, but she wasn’t even sure if he understood what she was saying, considering the dazed look he was giving her.
Casting a simple ice spell on his hip to numb the pain, she shifted the bone into its correct alignment before sinking her mana in deep. She closed her eyes and let the old magic of her spell guide her as she mapped out the fracture. It wasn’t a clean break, was a few hours old, and had worsened from the trauma of walking on it. Had he sought aid immediately after the break, it might have been a minor fix but…
What was he running from? Or better yet… who?
She cleared her mind of her buzzing questions and fixed her attention on mending him. She sent a forceful pulse of mana into his leg. She felt the bone begin to reconnect beneath her palms, growing and sealing itself. She had to be so careful not to move, or she would set it wrong and it would cause more damage. She let out the breath she had been holding and felt her mana reserves depleting each second she held onto the spell. She was draining herself to save this man who could very well end her world as she knew it. She hoped against hope this was worth the risk. She had to believe it was worth the risk.
“There, your bone is set. It’ll be a long while until you’re walking again normally on your own, but we can worry about that later,” she said to him comfortingly, lifting a hand off his thigh to squeeze his hand. He weakly returned the gesture.
At least it was some kind of response, a sign he understood. Attempting to carry on a one-sided conversation wasn’t bringing Anise much comfort but it was a welcomed distraction for her mind from that fact that this was the Dread Wolf she was tending to. That it was the Dread Wolf’s hand she was holding. Her stomach lurched.
Hooking one of his arms over her shoulder, she slowly lifted him up. Despite the slow pace, it still elicited a pained cry from the Wolf. He had trouble finding his balance once upright, slumping into her almost immediately. She swayed with the sudden added weight, and took a moment to adjust to his presence leaning into her. Even without the armor, he was quite heavy. She felt him tense and quake against her side as she took her first step, but did not protest further as she led him away. With a glance over her shoulder at her disordered camp and cringed. She was going to have to sneak away later at some point to cover up the evidence before a clanmate stumbled upon the carnage.
As they walked, Anise tried quiet her mind to the overwhelming tide of panic while he bled onto her hunting gear as she carried him out of the woods.
Her Keeper was going to kill her.
If her Keeper ever found out the truth.